'Whale' watching in La Jolla

If you are wondering where that whale on Prospect Ave. came from, and why it’s looking at you, it’s the latest artwork in the La Jolla Community Foundation’s Murals of La Jolla project.

“Whale,” installed at 2020 Prospect St., is by Nina Katchadourian, a UC San Diego graduate now working in Brooklyn and teaching at NYU.

In a statement on the project’s website, Katchadourian says her aspiration is to create “an image that would have a very still, low-key, but also strong, steady, and mysterious presence.

“I wanted to use an image of a whale in a manner that would make it feel a bit like it was hiding, or hidden: one part lurking, one part furtive, one part shy.”

There are now 13 murals on display in La Jolla and Bird Rock, thanks to the project, ranging from (my two favorites) John Baldessari’s “Brain/Cloud (with Seascape and Palm Tree),” which can be seen from La Jolla Cove, to Fred Tomaselli’s “Expecting to Fly (for the Zeros),” which provides a thoughtful diversion while you are stopped at the light at the corner of Girard and Prospect.